Adolescent sex and marriage

DR GABRIELLE JAMELA HOSEIN

A FEW weeks ago, Pundit Krishna Rambally spoke about the legitimacy of a 16- or 17-year-old being allowed to get married, with her or his consent and with the support of their families, in certain limited circumstances. A slew of responses asserted that marriage of a 16- or 17-year-old constitutes child abuse.

Pundit Rambally emphasised that he was not advocating forced or “child” marriages of ten to 13-year-olds, but rather for access to marriage for sexually-active adolescents. As he put it, “Which do you prefer? Having a 17-year-old girl get pregnant and have a child out of wedlock? Or have her deliver a child within the sanctity of marriage? This was our view. We were not for one moment suggesting that the teenager be forced into marrying.”

These comments highlight how sexuality and marriage are mobilised as markers of history, tradition, religion, race and patriarchal power in a context where ethnic boundaries are often set through control of women’s bodies and their obedience to rules of respectability.

The widely-supported argument he is making is for sex and reproduction within marriage. This is why there is powerful cross-religious resistance to teaching about safe sex and contraception in schools.

To critique his argument, it’s not the child marriage data that the public should know. It’s the data on the partners of these girls, and the outcomes of early unions.

A 2020 joint select committee report on teenage pregnancy observed that, for the period 2015-2019, over 90 per cent of men fathering children of teenage mothers were over 18 years old. For this period, 211 males younger than 18 years fathered children of teenage mothers, while 2,381 males were aged 18 years or older.

However, in a subsequent submission dated July 1, 2019, the Ministry of Health reported that 506 males below the age of 20 fathered children with teenage mothers during the last five years.

For the period 2014-2018, 146 of these men were between 31 and 40 and 24 were between 41 and 50 . The majority, or 1,395, of those fathering children born to adolescent mothers were 20-30 years old. As many as 142 of them were listed with unknown or undeclared ages.

According to the police, between 2015 and 2019, 203 adult men (ages 18-47) were categorised as accused in the cases of teenage pregnancies, whereas 115 were categorised as minors. The number of accused males with unknown ages was 274. The majority of teen pregnancies are not for other adolescent males.

Rather, these fathers are adult men, including those more than five and ten years older than girls, engaging in irresponsible and predatory sex with minors, leading to unplanned pregnancies and life chances which are changed forever, at a time when girls have insufficient understanding of sex and its consequences, contraception or family planning.

Typically, teenage mothers have not finished school, established a livelihood or experienced adult independence to decide who and what they want in their lives. They experience higher rates of further unwanted pregnancies, and financial dependence because, and this is absolutely key, the majority of teenage pregnancies occur among girls who are poor.

The TT Women’s Health Survey data also highlights that one in four women (25 per cent) who were first married or cohabiting with a male partner by the age of 18 or younger also experienced sexual abuse before they were 18.

However, women who entered their first union aged 19 years or older had a lower prevalence of childhood sexual abuse (18 per cent). In other words, child sexual abuse is a driver of early first unions.

As well, women who were married or lived with a partner at a young age had higher rates of witnessing and experiencing family violence, and experiencing intimate partner physical and sexual violence, than those whose first union was at 19 years or older.

The data challenges the stories we tell ourselves, such as that wedlock is a place of sanctity and safety. Drawing on girls’ own reflections, the data suggests they want the support of families and fathers, but would defer marriage until they are better educated, more economically independent and more emotionally ready to deal with responsibility for and to a man – and it might be a different man from their baby’s father. Keep in mind, since indenture, Hindu women have been leaving their partners for men who treated them better.

Listening to those who have been adolescent mothers talk about what would have been best for them is essential before speaking authoritatively about what they need or what they should do.

Diary of a mothering worker

Entry 465

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